But that future will take a few years to pan out. In the meantime,you can expect to be bombarded with early versions of tomorrow’stech that are bound to feel janky and incomplete. Welcome toPrototype World. . . during which everything new will moreor less stink.

“It’s like the junior high years in technology,” . . .“We’re in those awkward teenage years where everything looksand feels funky.”

Virtual reality will underwhelm, artificial intelligence will feelannoyingly unintelligent, and cars and drones that navigatethemselves will seem safer when parked. There will be wearablesyou won’t want to wear and home devices that will make youwant to buy a new place. . .====

The Wizard: Can I believe my eyes? Why have you come back?

Dorothy: Please sir, we've done what you told us. We brought you the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West. We melted her.

The Wizard: Oh, you liquidated her, eh? Very resourceful.

Dorothy: Yes, sir. So we'd like you to keep your promises, if you please, sir.

The Wizard: Not so fast, NOT SO FAST! I'll have to give the matter a little thought. Go away and come back tomorrow.

Dorothy: Tomorrow? Oh, but I want to go home now!

Tin Man: You've had plenty of time to think already!

Cowardly Lion: Yeah!

The Wizard: DO NOT AROUSE THE WRATH OF THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ! I SAID COME BACK TOMORROW!

By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use.Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colorsthat will change at the touch of a push button.

Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even whenpresent will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight.The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alterautomatically in accordance with the intensity of the lightfalling upon it. . .

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but theywill be in existence. The I.B.M. exhibit at the present fair hasno robots but it is dedicated to computers, which are shown inall their amazing complexity, notably in the task of translatingRussian into English. If machines are that smart today, whatmay not be in the works 50 years hence? It will be such computers,much miniaturized, that will serve as the "brains" of robots.In fact, the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World's Fair may have,as one of its prime exhibits, a robot housemaid -- large, clumsy,slow-moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging,cleaning and manipulation of various appliances. It will undoubtedlyamuse the fairgoers to scatter debris over the floor in order tosee the robot lumberingly remove it and classify it into"throw away" and "set aside." (Robots for gardening work willalso have made their appearance.)

General Electric at the 2014 World's Fair will be showing3-D movies of its "Robot of the Future," neat and streamlined,its cleaning appliances built in and performing all tasksbriskly. (There will be a three-hour wait in line to see thefilm, for some things never change.)

The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course,for they will be powered by long-lived batteries running onradioisotopes. The isotopes will not be expensive for theywill be by-products of the fission-power plants which, by 2014,will be supplying well over half the power needs of humanity.But once the isotope batteries are used up they will be disposedof only through authorized agents of the manufacturer.

And experimental fusion-power plant or two will already existin 2014. . . Large solar-power stations will also be in operationin a number of desert and semi-desert areas. . . An exhibitat the 2014 fair will show models of power stations in space,collecting sunlight by means of huge parabolic focusing devicesand radiating the energy thus collected down to earth. . .

Jets of compressed air will. . . lift land vehicles off the highways. . .

[V]ehicles with "Robot-brains" -- vehicles that can be set forparticular destinations and that will then proceed there withoutinterference by the slow reflexes of a human driver. . .

For short-range travel, moving sidewalks. . .

Compressed air tubes will carry goods and materials. . .

[Y]ou will see as well as hear the person you telephone. . .

[Y]ou will be able to reach someone at the moon colonies. . .However, by 2014, only unmanned ships will have landed on Mars. . .

As for television, wall screens will have replaced the ordinary set;but transparent cubes will be making their appearance in whichthree-dimensional viewing will be possible. . .

One can go on indefinitely in this happy extrapolation, butall is not rosy. . .====